


Little Weasel

by Lukoni



Category: Bonanza
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Episode Related, Homophobia, M/M, Regret, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-22
Updated: 2011-10-22
Packaged: 2017-10-24 20:43:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/267686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lukoni/pseuds/Lukoni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam, prisoner of the Paiutes, is caught between two warring factions, between two cultures, and between past love and future regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little Weasel

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on 5/27/07 on LJ's Fic_On_Demand, thanks to an irresistible prompt from Oleander9999 asking for a Bonanza fic with "Adam, and NOT incest!"
> 
> This is set during the episode “The Paiute War” (Season 1, episode 4, originally broadcast October 3, 1959) whose summary, from [Bonanza: Scenery of the Ponderosa](http://ponderosascenery.homestead.com/index.html), is as follows: “Trader Mike Wilson attempts to escape punishment by the Paiute Indians after mistreating two of their women, by placing the blame on Adam. A fierce war between the Paiutes and the California militia follows, and the Paiutes seize Adam as hostage.” The summary neglects to mention one of the Paiutes, Young Wolf, is an old friend of Adam’s. _*cue slash goggles*_
> 
> As I have only seen this episode once, and it was over 10 years ago, I may have gotten a few details wrong, so please forgive me! I had no beta, so all screwups are my own. Please feel free to send me corrections. Also please forgive me if this is seen as culturally insensitive - it is based on canon, but a lot has changed since 1959 and it is set in the 19th century, so prejudices will abound; I tried my best to humanize the situation.

Adam felt a drop of sweat slide down the back of his neck, regretting the loss of water as the sun beat down on his head. He longed to brush it away, the sensation of its path tickling his skin, but was prevented by tight leather cords binding his hands behind him around the trunk of a small tree. It was hard to believe it had come to this.

His gaze swept the small encampment until it found Young Wolf, talking with the chief. That face was as handsome as ever, stronger now, fuller with manhood, earnest as always, but the laughter was gone from his eyes. Adam remembered those eyes dancing with mirth and challenge so long ago. _Come, Little Weasel, you can do better than that!_ Before this disaster. Before university. Before there had been a word, vile and shameful, for what he had felt. They had felt.

They were just kids when they met, one a pale, clever boy who’d buried three mothers and journeyed two thousand miles from the place of his birth. He’d shouldered more responsibility than most his age, helping his father forge an empire in this harsh land, and he looked at the world without bitterness but with reservation, calculation and distrust.

The other was a dark, proud fledgling warrior, whose people had been nearly wiped out by disease and whose territory was shrinking under pressure from the encroaching white men. He hunted with zeal, ran like the wind and laughed at any suggestion that he could not do something.

Where Adam saw danger, Young Wolf saw challenge. Where Adam saw wild, Young Wolf saw beauty. Where Adam saw cruelty, Young Wolf saw justice. And yet when they saw each other they saw a friend.

And when, one day, after a day spent hunting, and Young Wolf had proved his skill with a bow to be many times greater than Adam’s, Young Wolf leaned in close to Adam to tease him, and Adam felt his lips against those of his friend, they had laughed, and touched again, and wrestled in the long grass and discovered desire together. _You really are white everywhere, Little Weasel!_

 

Adam shook his head in the blazing sun and attempted to shrug his shoulders to give his strained muscles relief. It had all seemed so simple back then. They’d never told anyone of their relationship – they’d had enough sense to know it was wrong in the eyes of society. But under the eyes of the blue sky and the bright sun and the sparkling stars they had been able to pretend it was all right.

Then Adam had been sent back east to school. And there, like his biblical namesake, he’d learned shame. And along with it, ugliness and the bitter truth of what society could do to trust and innocence. Not that he had suffered personally. Unless you count the suicide of his roommate, a gentle boy of seventeen, who had been discovered in a compromising position with one of the groundskeepers. Adam had lived under suspicion himself by association for the rest of the year before talk finally subsided and he could walk down the hall without whispers and snide comments following in his wake.

And despite the many losses of his early childhood, he did not truly hate until then. Until that young boy’s memory was reviled by the men who had called him friend, until he had to live every day with the hypocrisy of those who claimed to believe in God, love and forgiveness. Until he returned home to the wilderness only to discover that they had made him like them.

He learned that the first time he’d seen Young Wolf again, a chance meeting on the road to town, and found he couldn’t meet the warrior’s eye. Young Wolf’s smile dissolved into a frown and he called Adam a white man, something he’d never called him except in teasing, and turned away. Adam longed to call him back, but his throat closed up on him and he could only watch the lithe form disappear back into the forest.

Adam hated himself for months after that. His father, worried at his prolonged sulking, had finally knocked some sense into him. Even without knowing exactly what was wrong, his father had been able to guide him back to himself, away from fear and self-pity. And while Adam could never admit his secret to his family, he could make things right with the one man who did know his secret. Who shared it.

He sought Young Wolf out and apologized. But Young Wolf had changed too. Become prouder and more confident. Had gained responsibility in the tribe. Had a wife. And so they made their peace with one another and went their separate ways.

And now they were here together again, but as enemies. As he watched Young Wolf climb to the top of the ridge, his sun-kissed skin gleaming, he felt again that desire he’d thought he’d been able to rid himself of. He remembered the feel of Young Wolf’s hands around his wrists pressing him into the dirt, of his long black hair brushing across his bare chest, of those strong legs pushing his own apart. He smiled to himself as he remembered the first time he’d been able to squirm free and pin Young Wolf in return. _Little Weasel finally learns his true nature._ And now his skin itched from more than just sweat. He shifted his hips to relieve the growing pressure in his groin.

The absurdity of the situation made him shake his head once more. Tied to a tree, a prisoner of a tribe he’d once called his second family, a pawn trapped between the forces of two nations on a collision course, and for some reason his cock was trying to regain its youth. He would have laughed but his throat was too dry. Instead he closed his eyes and tried to escape into sleep.

He must have succeeded for the next thing he knew, a finger was stroking his face and it was dark and the sounds of night murmured in his ears. He looked up to see those dark eyes that had once been as familiar to him as his own. They were filled up now with sorrow and anger, no room left for the laughter that had once dwelled there. Adam was not the only one who had learned hate.

“You know I didn’t do what they said,” Adam said, his dry voice cracking and barely audible. It was the first time they’d spoken since he been taken prisoner and he found he had make sure his friend didn’t hate him for the wrong reasons.

“I know,” was Young Wolf’s quiet reply. He held a cup up to Adam’s parched lips and Adam gratefully drank down the water inside.

“You don’t have to do this,” Adam whispered, reluctant to attract the attention of the others sleeping not too far distant. He longed to be alone with Young Wolf, as they used to be, free to argue or tease or wrestle as they pleased. “The army will never agree to what you want. And if you fight them, they’ll destroy you.”

“And I’m supposed to just let them rape our women and do nothing?”

Adam had no reply to this. He recognized that tone, that stubborn, self-righteous, brave tone, the one that spoke of his ancestors and his gods and the right way for his people to live. I have asked the ancestors to watch over you, Little Weasel, since yours are so far away. And Adam was on his side. He wanted the men who committed such a crime to suffer too, and he knew they wouldn’t. And he wanted Young Wolf to see that by making his stand here, he would be condemning his people to worse crimes.

And then soft lips met his own. Familiar and gentle and calm. Adam leaned forward toward the touch, ignoring the resistance from his wrists and shoulders. The taste so well remembered and yet different, tinged now with tobacco. Young Wolf pulled back, breaking the kiss, and Adam could not follow. It wasn’t fair.

“I know you think this is wrong,” the warrior said, his eyes now fierce. “But no matter what happens, it will be better than living with the shame of lying down like a dog at the feet of the white man.”

Adam swallowed hard, knowing Young Wolf was determined. He wanted to promise to help if he would just stop this and go through legal channels. The law was just, the law would help them, right was so clearly on their side. But he didn’t. Because he knew the men from the east. And he knew how easily they turned on each other to save themselves, let alone people from outside. Savage Indians who didn’t know God. As if they did themselves. His bitterness must have shown on his face, for Young Wolf gently stroked the lines from his brow.

“What we had was good. Don’t let them make you believe it wasn’t.”

Regret washed over him then. He wanted to turn the tables and smooth the grim tension from Young Wolf’s jaw but his bindings were too strong. He could only bend his leg and let his knee rest against the warrior’s strong thigh.

“But it is over now,” Young Wolf continued. “You will always be one of them. You cannot be on my side.” Adam wanted to deny it, but he knew enough to know that in the end it would be the truth.

“I’m sorry,” he said, instead, knowing it was insufficient.

“I know, Little Weasel,” said Young Wolf. “I am sorry too.” He leaned forward again, captured Adam’s mouth in a questing, demanding, devastating kiss. Then he disappeared silently into the night, leaving Adam gasping for breath, thrumming with need and aching with sorrow.

 

And the next day, when the shooting was over, and Adam was still alive and Young Wolf was dead, Adam numbly accepted the embraces of his father and brothers, and mounted the horse they gave him, and he rode away as fast as he could. He left them along the trail, told them he’d be home soon, and went to the lake. That small lake with the ducks where they’d first kissed. And there he sat, thinking of joy and innocence and love and beautiful brown eyes until the sun went down and he could finally cry with only the stars and the spirits of the ancestors to see.


End file.
